All stories

Lucy and Christian had arrived early, so they were there to see the scratching, clunking spectacle of the doors being heaved open.

Dumping the padlock and chain on the ground, Terry said: “Don’t come in yet. Let me clean up a bit first.”

They sat gingerly on an ancient picnic table, birdsong competing with the muted bangs and clatters from within. They talked briefly and in hushed tones about the evening ahead.

Eventually he emerged, smiling. “There we are, all done. I mean it’s not the lap of luxury but it should do all right. It’s still the Green Man.”

The pub had already been old and tired before it had shut, and the years since had done nothing for its charm. Yellowed woodchip paper was separating from the walls; the carpet’s familiar stickiness had attracted layers of dust. Presumably, Terry had at least removed the dead flies.

They threw open the windows and arranged photos, bunting and flowers. They fetched the cold boxes from the car and set out beer and wine. At 5 o’clock they took delivery of the buffet: sandwiches, sausage rolls, crisps, scones with jam. Thankfully it came with paper plates.

Amelie arrived soon afterwards, her hair in a bun and her eyes heavier than usual with mascara. She wore a floral dress, white on black, somewhere between celebration and mourning.

Lucy rushed to her: “I’m so sorry.”

The guests arrived in pairs and groups, some going straight for the drinks, others lingering by the book of condolence. At 7 o’clock there were speeches and music, and it was generally agreed that Jimmy would have wanted it this way.

Stan was the one who asked the question. He’d been one of Jimmy’s newer friends, a retirement acquaintance from the golf course.

“So what was this Bears thing all about, anyway?”

The conversation first went quiet in one corner of the bar, then across the room. Drinks were sipped.

“Well…” said Connor. “It goes back to our uni days. Not that I can remember much of them!”

The light ripple of laughter was not going to be enough to rescue him; he’d started this now.

“There were five of us, I suppose. Six if you count Davey, bless him. Call ourselves the Bears but I can’t remember why. We used to do everything together. Social stuff. Even lived with each other in the third year. And those terrible pub crawls you hear about students doing, ending up here. Always here.” He lifted his glass. “Shame this place closed.”

“And you kept on with it?”

“Yeah. Met up once a year for the first, what, ten years or so. Then it just sort of faded. We all lost touch. People got married. I think it was actually Jimmy who had the idea.”

“The idea?”

“Get back together again. When we turned 50. See who was who and what was what. Come back here.”

“Here?”

He puffed his cheeks and let out a long breath. “It was a rainy afternoon, stupid really. We should have known this place had closed years ago, shouldn’t have bothered coming. Taking a bloody shortcut, what were we thinking?”

Amelie dabbed at her eyes. “Please, Connor. Please don’t.”

“I’m sorry, Amelie. I’m so, so sorry. But we should never have gone near that cliff.”

She carries it all without a word, scooping her unhappiness into the shopping bags and burying it deep among the bottles of pop and plastic packets of shop-bought scones. The endless ready meals that make life easy and joyless.

The weight of it drags her shoulders towards the pavement as she trudges, weekly, down the grim and shuttered high-street. Past the nail salons and Polish bakeries. Past the disused pub that some kids have turned into a squat. Past the dog shit and bus stops and clusters of girls who snigger at her dowdy clothes and sagging face.

It’s not that she didn’t want another kind of life. Now the girls can have babies, or not; go to university or get a job; travel the world, chase careers, change their minds. Anything, it seems, is possible for them.

Things were different back when she was deciding. The world held its opportunities tight inside itself like an oyster, and she never even knew they were there until it was already too late. How did they know, these girls? How did they make it seem so easy?

Bernie proposed when she was seventeen and considered his romantic obligations complete after their registry office wedding and buffet spread in the church hall after. She had worn a cream coloured suit with a spray of blue flowers. Queen for a day; fool for a lifetime..

Then Jamie had come along, followed quickly by Ryan and then Karen. A stream of dirty nappies, dirty dishes, sticky fingers, open mouths and hungry bellies. No time to think, no time to wonder. No time to imagine anything else. School runs to make, tea on the table and sex twice a week. A holiday to Blackpool once a summer for a treat.

And now they are grown, but not gone. A nest still full of hungry mouths and dirty socks. A sinkful of dirty dishes and no sign of change.

But she carries it all, uncomplaining, jamming the feeling into her chest, burying it deep among the unspoken wishes and stifled longings. The endless regret that makes life hard and joyless.

They look at me, she thinks, and see a fading old woman. And who am I to say any different?

The house is dark and quiet. Bernie is at work. The kids are still in bed. The kitchen idles in filth, waiting to be cleaned. And there is breakfast to see to.

But she doesn’t unpack the shopping, or put on the kettle. She doesn’t wipe the plates on the draining board or set the table. Instead, she turns and walks from the house, not even stopping to fetch her keys.

She walks up and up and up, all the way to the top of the cliffs, carrying inside her the woman that she never had the chance to be, the years of missed opportunities weighing down on her back like sandbags.

And as she looks down to the waves crashing below, the jagged rocks, the wild sea spray she feels the wind in her hair, as if for the very first time.

And then, for a brief, heartstopping second she is carrying nothing, holding nothing, burying nothing.

For the first time, she is weightless.

"Nice scone" said Clifford Beasley.

"Has he?" said Clifford Davies.

“Has he what?”

“Gone”

“Who?”

“Nye”

“Who's Nye?”

“I don't bloody know, you mentioned him”

And thus it was with the Cliffs, as they were known. Clifford Beasley was usually called Cliff and Clifford Davies was usually called Cliffy.

“I said, nice scone, this that I'm eating, this scone it's nice”

“I’ve got a nice Chelsea bun today” Cliffy replied.

Cliff and Cliffy were having a bit of a break and as usual were comparing their snacks.

“You've got to be careful with a scone, they can be dry, but this is a nice one.”

“Did you finish feeding the Pangolin by the way?” said Cliffy

“I did indeed, poor little bugger was starving.”

Cliffy and Cliff worked in the Zoo. They weren't animal specialists as such, but they knew how to tempt a Marmoset with a carrot, or the best way to corral a Giraffe. They thought of themselves more as cowboys, animal wranglers.

Cliffy had started there first, twenty years ago. Cliff came along two years later. They often said they knew as much as Attenborough. They referred to him as Attenborough as though he was someone they might drink with in the Pig and Bishop. It was a rarely open pub, the landlord being inclined to drink his own stock, but the Cliffs thought Attenborough would have liked it. They knew they could have managed those gorillas just as well as he did.

“Come on Cliffy. Hurry up with that bun, we've got the bears to sort out.” sighed Cliff, stuffing the remains of his scone in a pocket.

Of all the animals in the zoo it was the bears that scared them. 6 years previously Cliff had an incident with a Honey Bear. He had been distracted by a passing peacock and taken his eye off the ball. He couldn’t sit for weeks.

They packed away their lunch and made their way to the enclosure in which were two slightly mangy looking bears. It was a hot day and the bigger of the bears was laying in the shade of their one scrappy tree. The other bear was pacing, looking slightly agitated.

As usual Cliffy took the coin from his pocket.

“Heads or tails?”

“Tails”

Up went the coin, reaching the zenith of its arc before falling into the dusty ground.

“Heads, don't worry though mate, I'll do it today, you’ve done the last 3.”

Cliff opened the gate as Cliffy went in carrying the bucket.

He moved slowly, keeping the bears in his peripheral vision. He emptied the bucket as usual and turned to leave. As he turned he heard a bellow, it sounded like a record at the wrong speed

“CLLLIIIIFFFFFYYYY…”

The smaller bear was moving towards him with gathering speed. Their eyes locked for a moment and Cliff remembered the time he put his hands up the blouse of Mary Owens aged 11. Then he felt a hand on his overall pulling him through the gate. It clanged shut as the bear slammed against it..

They stood facing each other, sweat dripping and chests heaving.

“Bloody hell!” said Cliffy

“Bloody hell!” said Cliff

“It was that bloody scone I reckon, he could smell it in your pocket.”

“What scone?”

“Nothing's gone”

“Pub?”

“Yes please, might not be open though.”

They were just easing out of the garage when Mama asked if he’d locked the back door. The car settled back on its springs.

Carefully, Dada said, ‘I locked the back door.’

‘Because you know what happened last time you didn’t lock the back door.’

‘I locked the back door.’

From the back of the car, a little voice, ‘Mum, I’m hungry.’

‘Hush, dear, we’re on our way.’

A few minutes later, that same little voice, ‘What are we having? Not salmon again?’

The windscreen perfectly clear, but Dada sprayed it and set the wipers going, muttering to himself, ‘There’s nothing wrong with salmon. Ate salmon all my life.’

‘He doesn’t have to have salmon. What would you like, dear?’

‘A scone. With cream! And jam!’

Another burst of windscreen washer action, another mutter, ‘Nothing wrong with salmon. Good for the eyes, all those omegas.’

A sigh from Mama, and they drove in silence a spell, until at last Dada said, ‘What about honey? How about a scone with cream and honey? Honey’s traditional.’

‘For heaven’s sake! At least the boy’s eating. Let him be.’

They completed the rest of the journey in silence, pulling into the empty car park of the cliff top pub. Mama said nothing, not even a sigh, but the way she crossed her arms, Dada couldn’t but help and blurt out, ‘It has been open, I swear!’

Mama looked at him. ‘When?’

Dada cleared his throat. ‘Nineteen sixty-four.’

‘We weren’t together in nineteen sixty-four. Who did you…?’

Mama looked once more at Dada. This time the crossing of her arms registered on a seismic readout in the University of Aberdeen.

Mama said, ‘It was with them.’

Dada gunned the engine.

‘Right! McDonalds it is! How about it Junior, forty-seven big macs?’

‘Yay! Maccy Dee’s!’

They hurtled out of the car park. Once the tyres had stop screaming Mama spoke.

‘It was the tiger and the donkey, wasn’t it.’

Dada tried a hopeful smile. Mama’s grimace deepened.

‘Now I know why you keep coming back here! This is where it happened: you and the donkey and the tiger. And the honey.’

Mama’s eyes fell shut and her head slipped to rest limply against her window. They drove in silence for a spell, and then that little voice from the back asked what would they be eating if the pub was closed.

‘It’s allright,’ Dada said. ‘We’ve always got the old standby.’

‘Awwwww, Dad! I hate porridge. Why do we even eat porridge? We’re bears.’

‘It’s traditional.’

Mama glared at him through one eye.

‘Oh yes, tradition. You’d know all about that wouldn’t you. A bear, a tiger, and a donkey?’

‘Don’t forget the honey, mum.’

Mama turned it into a double stare, with added arm crossing for good measure.

‘That’s right. The honey.’

Back at home, Junior charged into the kitchen. And stopped.

Mama took a look and then turned her triumphant glare on Dada.

‘I told you! But noooooo, I don’t need to check the door, and now LOOK AT IT! There is porridge on the ceiling!’

Dada cowered in silence.

From the vicinity of the bedrooms came a yelp, and then an uncertain voice, ‘Mum…she’s in my bed again.’ The voice livened. ‘Cor, you should see what she’s doing with the honey.’

“Where’s my extra thick clotted cream and raspberry blend jam scone?” Grizz roared his head buried in the fridge. The small house shook violently sending books tumbling off shelves.

Ice-Bear, ninja rolled thought the doorway, paws ready to fight. “Ice-bear doesn’t like noise.”

“Did you eat my scone?” Grizz mumbles accusingly. “It was my special treat.”

“Ice-bear does not care for jam” Ice-Bear states rollling back out of the room and into bed in one smooth movement.

A black and white face peaks through the window. “It’s happening. QUICKLY, FOLLOW ME.” Panda says, disappearing out of sight. Grizz in confusion follows him out. Panda jumps on his back and they trundle off into the woods. “That way” panda shouts pointing through a thick hedge. They smash their way through effortlessly. They are at the edge of a cliff and below they can see a quaint pub. Grizz looks up at Panda as together they shout “Leftovers”.

In the house ice-bear is staring at the scone placed on a table. He has one claw extended, poised like a sword. Suddenly he hears the front door, in one motion he scoops up a bowl and places it over the scone as he spins around. Panda and Grizz fall through the door on top of each other .

“ Pub open finally” Grizz pants.

“Food, cliff, rope.” Panda mumbles from beneath Grizz’s belly.

“Ice-bear is confused” states ice-bear.

“The pub, Ice, only the finest leftover feast known to bear kind. Finally open again, we have to go”.

Halfway down the cliff, Grizz pauses for a rest. “I can smell the roast dinner.” He is wearing his best fedora.

“Are we there yet?” Panda asks quietly with his eyes closed. “I can smell cake.” He has a beret on.

Ice bear, above the others checks they’re not looking and produces the scone from beneath his top-hat. He flicks out one claw. With a sharp swish he slices through the jam and cream. The jams falls as Grizz begins to climb down. His hand slips on the jam and the three bears tumble down into a pile. They groan collectively until Grizz sniffs the air. “Dinner time!” He shouts charging out of the pile. Panda follows him closely. Ice bear unfolds his arm to reveal the scone still in his top hat.

“I’ll check the menu.” Panda saysto Grizz hiding in a bush..

“Ice-bear is hungry.” Ice-bear states, appearing from nowhere.

Grizz is drooling a giant pool of slobber.

“Uh Grizz,” Panda murmers gently. ”you might want to look at this.” Grizz growls in disbelief. “This can’t be right. No no.” Grizz bursts into the pub; A sea of topbuns, beards, hand-woven tops and earthy colours turn to stare. Grizz glances at the nearest plate. “Roast cauliflower” he says, a giant paw smashing through the table. The pub erupts into chaos. “Mushroom and lentil risotto.” Another crash into the wall. “What about the cakes?” Panda yells rushing to the counter. “Carrot and kale” he cries bursting into tears whilst casually smashing through the counter. “Vegans” Grizz roars in a frenzy of destruction.

The two bears sit in the remains of the pub. Ice bear ninja rolls through the door. “Ice-bear feels bad, ice-Bear helps.” He carefully removes his hat to reveal the scone, still just about in tact.

She entered the Bear Inn, a rarely-opened pub above the cliffs which advertised Cream Teas on its door. She really, really wanted one.

“Sorry but we’re out of scones” Said Ken the avuncular landlord

Her heart sank, she had been eyeing the advert hungrily for months and been waiting for the pub to open on a sunny day so she could have one in this unique setting. Perhaps then she would compose a sonnet to it’s memory.

“We’ve got Chelsea buns, Danish pastries, Battenburg, Bakewell tart, and all the other cakes” said Ken waving a laminated menu.

“Give me some of those please,” she said disappointedly.

“Do you want a pot of tea with them?”

“No thank you- Just tap water!” Her day had been slightly ruined.

Ken handed her a large plate full of cakes.

“Tell me, why is this pub called The Bear Inn?” she asked through a mouthful of jam doughnut, “Surely there have never been bears living round here.”

Ken looked alarmed, then he leaned forward and whispered “Shhhh! they might hear! There are bears everywhere”.

“Really?”

“Shhh! Yes big brown ones, …..with claws” Ken’s face was troubled. “I keep the cakes handy” he explained, “in case we have to calm them down.”

“Which are their favourite cakes?” she asked.

“Scones!” said Ken “that’s why we haven’t got any. The bears have had ‘em.”

“Hmmm” she replied “And what’s with the irregular opening hours?”

“In order to stop them killing customers and staff I have to open the pub when they least expect it and I always keep a scone on hand!”

“Except today!” she reminded him bitterly.

“Yes” coughed Ken evasively “except today of course”.

“Try an Eccles cake. They are very good!” he whispered pointing at a disappointing bun.

“Now where was I? Oh yes. Scones! Bears love ‘em. But woe betide you if you rhyme them with cone, or put the cream on first! I’ve lost many barmaids that way” he sighed.

At this point a bear entered. It was not wearing any clothes and lumbered on all fours. It was not a friendly looking cartoon bear in a hat but a real angry one.

“Good evening sire” said Ken obsequiously, his fear betrayed by the high squeak of his voice.

“The usual!” muttered the bear

“For you mate anything!!” replied the landlord, producing a delicious looking cream tea from beneath the counter.

He shot his other customer an apologetic glance. Her eyebrows arched with cynicism.

“Actually” said the bear “just give me a jam doughnut after all.”

Ken stuttered desperately, the other customer had eaten the last one, it was her fault! He had said the bears wouldn’t like it.

The bear let out a furious cry picked Ken up in his huge paws and carried him from the pub screaming. Ken was never seen again.

The other customer enjoyed a lovely cream tea on the cliff top before heading home entirely unmolested.

Poor Ken, like so many landlords he had not heeded the lesson that all in his trade are taught in basic training (or ought to be).

Which is, that if find yourself in a dangerous story and want to last to the end, you should make feeding the writer your top priority, for bears don’t make up the endings.